


To You Your Father Should Be As A God

by snafurougarou



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst and Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 08:37:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13994550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snafurougarou/pseuds/snafurougarou
Summary: Snafu's first night home.





	To You Your Father Should Be As A God

Merriell jolts awake at an explosion cracking along his line of consciousness. Frantic breath follows the panicked thrum in his chest as it throws him forward onto his knees and sends his fingers skittering across fabric for weaponry he no longer possesses to protect himself from things that no longer threaten anything but his mind.

Through the fog of sleep, he searches for copper hair and honey eyes to assure him they are fine, that it was only a dream, but there is only shapeless dark and leaden silence until something smashes into the other side of his wall.

“Fuck!” He balls his fists in his sheet to steady himself. His teeth clench around the curse and chatter with the tremors seizing his muscles.

It takes a minute for his mind to catch up with the information around him, to acknowledge that he's in bed in the house he grew up in and not creeping through a jungle or on a sun-scorched speck of coral in the Pacific ocean. Bursts of noise here are more likely from shattered glass than the mortal roar of a grenade.

Groaning hinges call his eyes forward to catch the blurry shape of his door shifting as shadows sway beneath its edge. He breaks the tension in his muscles to slither back down under the sheet and bury his face in his pillow.

The memory of the previous day rushes in at him carried on a wave of fear and regret. Dead eyes meeting him at the door. Merriell could have been wearing a sweat-stained t-shirt and torn dungarees for all the attention Papa paid his uniform. He didn’t even tell him to come in, just left the door open, as indifferent to his homecoming as he’d been to his departure.

In this world, there are no kind words or proud handshakes. No Eugene to pull him into his arms and whisper solace against the back of his neck. No fingers to slot between his own and hold against his chest to feel the beat of his heart as if shared.

He gave that up for this.

“You take m’whiskey?” It’s more accusation than question, and not unjustified. Merriell had been sipping from a handle of bourbon swiped from the cupboard on his way to bed. Now it incriminates him, sitting on the floor in front of his nightstand. Merriell keeps his eyes and mouth shut.

Floorboards creak and snap as boots stomp closer and stop at the edge of his bed. Its springs screech to absorb weight settling beside him. A rough sigh. The squeaking pop of a cork from glass. One quick slosh of liquid swallowed by a leathery, bearded throat Merriell doesn’t have to see to picture. He’s studied Papa’s drinking enough to follow the act in his mind.

The reasons a marine would shake and stutter in the presence of a man like his father defies explanation. Bullets should train the fear of raised voices and backhands out of a person, but that doesn’t stop each noise from twisting him tighter as his heartbeat threatens his cover.

“Y’awake, boy?” Merriell doesn't answer, keeps his breathing as steady as possible as fumes of whiskey and old smoke waft up his nose. He shrinks - hasn’t felt so small in years.

“G’damnit.” Papa huffs and scratches his rough whiskers, sound like bristles against Merriell's eardrums. He tries not to jump when a sandpaper hand cradles the back of his skull momentarily before lifting away again, hovering close enough for it to catch stray strands of hair.

His stomach fills with stones as he prepares for a hand across face or to be thrown from where he's frozen himself. He shouldn’t have come here. He had enough cash to check into a motel and figure out his next move, but his foolish longing for home had been a dowsing stick leading him to this familiar hell instead.

Calloused fingers lightly fidget with Merriell’s curls. They tug at some softness he's never known from the man, a distant memory - more of a formless nostalgia gnawing at his core that he shoves down deeper still. It’s easier not to miss something he can’t remember - and then sink into the unruly mass to give little a ruffle before resting on his shoulder.

The room is too quiet against the unfamiliar affection, but the words that cut through are far more jarring.

“Lotta boys di’n't make it home…”

If he were “awake” he'd toss a shoulder and snap, “so?” Papa never cared about if he made it home, not when he was a child and not when he was in a goddamn foxhole a world away. No goodbyes uttered between them. Never even a few scribbled words in the mail to say he was thinking of him. It’s a little late to be having any feelings about it at all.

“Ya mama’d b’real proud’a ya.” It's quiet and slurred like a secret slipping from careless lips. Sounds break against the barrier of Papa's teeth, words he catches before they can betray anything more.

Papa rubs his shoulder in place of speaking to his sleeping son. It’s light, meant only for himself really. Merriell isn’t supposed to have this. He doesn’t know that he even wants it.

Papa drops his hand from his shoulder, leaving behind a tense impression. Maybe he’s unsettled by Merriell's unresponsive slumber, because he takes hold of his wrist instead, fingertips seeking his pulse along the artery, as if his presence isn't enough confirmation that he survived.

Papa’s breath falters into heavy silence - Merriell holds his own within rigid lungs. His blood drums along fingertips as if trying to knock them off, and it’s rough enough that they jerk away, shocked. The bed shifts and cries as Papa shoves himself to his feet, curses muttered off a drunk tongue as he stumbles to the door. Merriell flinches and startles when it slams shut.

He blinks at the darkness, swallowing everything he doesn't want to feel. As he works his mind to sleep, he tries not to wonder what it's like to have a father like Burgie's or Eugene's - something he'd never wanted before he knew what kind of men were grown from love.

In the morning, Merriell pads out to the kitchen following the scent of coffee. Papa sits at the table smoking and doesn't spare him a glance as he flicks ash into a tin.

He isn't sure what he'd been expecting. In the absence of monsters, that first night home gave him something broken, and maybe with it the briefest glimmer of hope. Stupid.

“'Bout time you got your lazy ass up. If you're gonna stay here, ya best be findin’ work. Ain't got space for no freeloader.”

Merriell lights a smoke and nods.

 


End file.
